A semester's worth of Joyce Carol Oates

I've begun an independent study project with a student this term and we're reading numerous novels, short stories and essays by Oates. A more detailed discussion is taking place in her blog and in a course discussion board, but I'm going to be posting some of my ongoing thoughts and responses here. Anyone who's interested should feel free to ask questions or make comments. We are first discussing two of Oates' early and much-anthologized stories, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (1966) and "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again" (1969)
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I came across an article a student gave me in 1998 in which JCO (basically) answers the question "Why do you write?"

She says a lot of things here about her obsession with imagination and dreams and says that writing is a sign of hope in a world without meaning. "Writing is not an escape from reality...it is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system" (partially paraphrasing Flannery O'Connor, to whom she gives credit, though for O'Connor the world was, in fact, filled with meaning).

"The world has no meaning; I am sadly resigned to this fact. But the world has meanings, many individual and alarming and graspable meanings, and the adventure of being human consists in seeking out these meanings."

What she is getting at, I think, is that while there is no one, single, overarching meaning in the universe, there are many individual "meanings" that can be explored. She believes, again, I think, that because we are human, we seek meaning and want meaning, and that the job of the artist is investigate and expose "meanings," not a single unifying "meaning of life."

There is an example that she gives that I think will help us as we grapple with our wish or expectation that there is some "meaning" we are to grasp from her stories. Are you familiar with any Chekhov stories? Well, there is a story called "The Lady with the Pet Dog," a great story. Oates wrote her own updated version of this story giving it the identical title. Here is what she says about the Chekhov story in this article as she gives a very brief plot summary: "They meet, they fall in love, they continue to meet...she weeps, he is helpless, they cannot marry because of their families, their social obligations, etc. That is all the story 'means.' Chekhov gives us a sense of their dilemma, an unforgettable sense of their anguish, and the story need have no meaning beyond that. Surely they are not being punished for adultery!--nor are they being punished for not being daring enough to run away together."

I put that part in bold just in case we start looking for transcendent meaning in her stories!

I can imagine, for instance, that she might have seen something about an arrest in a newspaper or maybe just a brief notice about a minor being arrested for shoplifting and she began to wonder what was going on in the mind of a young person who might seem to have a lot of advantages but got herself into this situation. I can see that happening.